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  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2009 by James Scott Bell

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Center Street

  Hachette Book Group

  237 Park Avenue

  New York, NY 10017

  Visit our website at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  www.twitter.com/centerstreet

  Center Street is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The Center Street name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  First eBook Edition: July 2009

  ISBN: 978-1-599-95310-6

  Contents

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  Chapter 73

  Chapter 74

  Chapter 75

  Chapter 76

  Chapter 77

  Chapter 78

  Chapter 79

  Chapter 80

  Chapter 81

  Chapter 82

  Chapter 83

  Chapter 84

  Chapter 85

  Chapter 86

  Chapter 87

  Chapter 88

  Chapter 89

  Chapter 90

  Chapter 91

  Chapter 92

  Chapter 93

  Chapter 94

  Chapter 95

  Chapter 96

  Chapter 97

  Chapter 98

  Chapter 99

  Chapter 100

  Chapter 101

  Chapter 102

  Chapter 103

  Chapter 104

  Chapter 105

  Chapter 106

  Chapter 107

  Chapter 108

  Chapter 109

  Chapter 110

  Chapter 111

  Chapter 112

  Chapter 113

  Chapter 114

  Chapter 115

  Chapter 116

  Chapter 117

  Chapter 118

  Chapter 119

  Chapter 120

  Chapter 121

  Chapter 122

  Chapter 123

  Chapter 124

  Chapter 125

  Chapter 126

  Chapter 127

  Chapter 128

  Chapter 129

  Chapter 130

  Chapter 131

  Chapter 132

  Chapter 133

  Chapter 134

  Chapter 135

  Chapter 136

  Chapter 137

  Chapter 138

  Chapter 139

  Chapter 140

  Chapter 141

  Chapter 142

  Chapter 143

  Chapter 144

  Chapter 145

  Chapter 146

  Chapter 147

  Chapter 148

  Chapter 149

  Chapter 150

  Chapter 151

  Chapter 152

  Chapter 153

  Chapter 154

  Chapter 155

  Chapter 156

  Chapter 157

  Chapter 158

  Chapter 159

  Chapter 160

  Chapter 161

  Chapter 162

  Chapter 163

  Chapter 164

  Chapter 165

  Chapter 166

  Chapter 167

  Chapter 168

  Chapter 169

  Chapter 170

  Chapter 171

  Chapter 172

  Chapter 173

  Chapter 174

  Chapter 175

  Chapter 176

  Chapter 177

  Chapter 178

  Chapter 179

  Chapter 180

  Chapter 181

  Chapter 182

  Chapter 183

  Also by James Scott Bell

  Try Dying

  Try Darkness

  Available from Center Street wherever books are sold.

  My memories of growing up in L.A. come to me mostly in black and white. I see myself as a kid stepping through an episode of Perry Mason. That’s because my dad was an L.A. criminal lawyer, and I remember downtown as being made up of white, sun-bleached buildings, hot in the summer sun. When I first rode Angels Flight with Dad—I was six, and Dad was involved with a grassroots movement to save the venerable L.A. landmark, a movement that was ultimately successful—it was to the top of the Bunker Hill from Criss Cross, the Burt Lancaster noir classic (a black-and-white film, of course). And when I recall first seeing my dad in court, it was in the days of the fedora, which TV shows never depicted in living color.

  There were a few things about Dad that remain “black and white,” in symbolic terms, too. Dad did not tolerate racism. He had played baseball at UCLA with Jackie Robinson, was even his roommate on road trips, and as a defender of poor clients brooked no color barriers when it came to justice. He taught me to think the same way, and made me want to become a trial lawyer like him. So I did. And even got to work with him, as his office mate, in the last few years of his life.

  And so this book is dedicated to a great L.A. lawyer and a great man—my dad, Arthur S. Bell, Jr.

  Acknowledgments

  The author is greatly indebted to the following for their exceedingly valuable help in the preparation of this book and series: Cindy Bell, Christina Boys, Manuel Muñoz, Leah Tracosas, Karen Thompson, Al Menaster, Gina Laughney, Rene Gutteridge, Ellen Tarver, Michael J. Kennedy, Sgt. Mike Sayre, LAPD, Capt. Tom Brascia, LAPD, and Special Ag
ent Michael Yoder, FBI.

  Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

  My lifeblood seemed to sip.

  —Coleridge

  1

  THE COPS NABBED Santa Claus at the corner of Hollywood and Gower. He was driving a silver Camaro and wearing a purple G-string and a red Santa hat. And nothing else on that warm December night.

  According to his driver’s license his name was Carl Richess, a thirty-three-year-old from West Hollywood.

  But he insisted he was the one, the only, Santa Claus. He said he could prove it, too. He pointed repeatedly to his hat.

  The police officer who initiated the stop—for not wearing a seat belt—mentioned the Santa hat in his report, and the G-string. Also the open, nearly empty bottle of Jose Cuervo Gold on the seat next to the jolly elf.

  After noting red eyes, slurred speech, and the odor of an alcoholic beverage, the officer ordered Richess out of his car for field sobriety tests.

  Richess protested that he was late, that his reindeer needed to be fed. He said this even as he was failing the heel-to-toe and lateral gaze nystagmus tests.

  He loudly screamed the same thing at Hollywood station, where they had him blow into the Intoximeter a couple of times. And again when they cuffed him to a metal rod on one of the wooden benches outside the holding tank. He was still muttering about reindeer when they booked him into the jail and stuck the six-foot-five, 280-pound would-be Kringle in a cell. They gave him some old clothes to cover himself.

  They took his hat, let him keep the G-string.

  Three others shared the community cell with St. Nick—two gangbangers and a Korean street performer who’d been fire-eating in front of the Pantages Theater. I found out later he set a well-dressed woman’s hair on fire, which is against several city ordinances.

  About the time Father Christmas was being cuffed and stuffed—copspeak for arrested and jailed—I was nursing a Gandhi Latte at the Ultimate Sip. The Sip is an honest coffee establishment owned and operated by one Barton C. “Pick” McNitt, a former philosophy professor at Cal State Northridge who went crazy and now pushes caffeine and raises butterflies for funeral ceremonies.

  He makes up drinks that have philosophical significance. He is serious about this. He came up with the Gandhi Latte because his style of foam, he believes, encourages nonviolence in those who drink it.

  This has yet to be proven scientifically.

  Pick also waxes loud on any subject he deems appropriate for the betterment, or castigation, of mankind. He does not believe in God. Father Robert Jackson, who everybody calls Father Bob, does. In the middle I sometimes sit, watching a philosophical Wimbledon.

  But on this particular night there was no match, so I was wrestling with the Dialogues of Plato. That’s one thing to do if you’re trying to recalibrate your life and figure out what, if anything, it means. At that moment it was a tie between not much and something just out of reach. Which is why I was digging hard into the dialogue called Phaedrus.

  And then I got a call from Father Bob.

  “There’s a fellow in jail in Hollywood,” he said. “He needs a lawyer.”

  “Anyone in jail in Hollywood needs a lawyer,” I said.

  “I mean it. His mother called me, very upset.”

  “What’s he in for?”

  “He told his mother he sort of got arrested for drunk driving and telling the police he was Santa Claus.”

  I cleared my throat. “My dear Father, it is illegal to drive drunk, but not to say you are Santa Claus.”

  “He was dressed in a Santa hat and, I guess, a G-string. That’s what he told his mother, anyway.”

  I put the Dialogues down on the table. “Are you sure it’s a lawyer he needs?”

  “His mother says he’s been under a lot of strain lately.”

  “Does he have money to pay a lawyer?”

  “His mother does.”

  “I’m reading Plato.”

  “She was in tears.”

  “I would be, too, if my son got busted in a G-string.”

  “Ty, will you go?”

  “To see Santa Claus?” I said. “By golly, who wouldn’t?”

  2

  LAPD’S HOLLYWOOD STATION is a squat brick building on Wilcox, south of Sunset, across the street from the appropriately named SOS Bail Bonds. I got there a little before ten and parked in front. It was a Wednesday night, quiet in Hollywood. Tomorrow the club scene would start in earnest and fill the weekend.

  At the front desk I put my card down and told the desk officer I was there to pick up Richess.

  He laughed. “Santa?”

  “He’d be the one,” I said.

  “Biggest Santa I’ve ever seen,” the officer said. He had short black hair and a pointed chin. His name plate said HOWSER.

  “Can we cite him out?” I said, meaning Richess wouldn’t have to post bond. I knew the decision would depend on his previous record, and what he said or did since they popped him.

  Howser said, “I’ll be back.” He got up and went into the inner office, leaving me with a kid, maybe eighteen, who was sitting by the vending machine, head in hands.

  I looked around. On the wall, facing the desk, were some framed portraits. I had no idea who they were. A couple of them looked 1950s vintage. Severe hair. Serious looks. Jack Webb types. It was Webb and Dragnet that made the LAPD famous. So I’ve been told. I never saw Dragnet. I grew up on Thomas Magnum.

  When I was twelve I almost ran away to Hawaii. I was going to work until I was eighteen, then get a private investigator license. My mom put the kibosh on that. My dad had died a couple years earlier and she wasn’t about to let me even think something stupid.

  But she did buy me some Hawaiian shirts. I wore them all summer, tucked into jeans. Little Magnum.

  Howser came back and said I was in luck. “If you call it luck.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I’m authorized to tell you his reading, on both tests, was point one-eight. Sound’s like a fun one to handle, huh?”

  “Fun’s why I went into law,” I said. “How dull would it be if my clients blew oh-threes.”

  “He’ll be out. Have a seat.” Howser went back to his computer monitor.

  I sat on one of the black metal bench seats and waited. A middle-aged woman in a faded pink sweatshirt came in the front doors and used the QuickDraw. They put ATMs in a lot of the stations so people can get money without fear of being robbed on the street.

  Now if they could only put in a machine where criminal defense lawyers could withdraw a little respect.

  A couple of plainclothes detectives came in. I could tell because they went right through the door marked “Detectives.” I am very sharp that way.

  Through it all the kid by the vending machine just sat there, looking at nothing in particular. Probably waiting for someone to pick him up. I wondered who it would be. Did he have a father, one who was actually around? Or one who liked to take out his own frustrations on the kid’s skin?

  Did he have a mother who cared about him? Or did she like to get high while her kid went out and did whatever the hell he wanted?

  Part of me wanted to talk to him. Wanted to say, Look, if your parents are around, and they’re halfway decent, don’t do this to them. It’s not worth it. Don’t—

  The door next to the front desk opened and an officer came out with Carl Richess. I could tell it was him because he was holding his Santa hat. At least they were letting him keep the ill-fitting clothes that now covered him.

  Ill fitting because Richess was huge. He had a head like a mastiff. Jowly, in keeping with his girth. Furrows in his forehead deep enough to hold loose change.

  “My mom call you?” he asked after I introduced myself. His breath could have peeled paint.

  “She called her priest, who called me,” I said. “Don’t say anything else.”

  I signed him out and got him to my car.

  3

  “WHAT ABOUT MY car?” Richess said as we headed for the free
way.

  “You’ll have to get it out of impound,” I said.

  “What’ll happen to me? Will I go to jail?”

  “You been convicted before?”

  “Never.”

  “Arrested?”

  “No.”

  “Okay, if you plead out, for a first offense, no jail time,” I said. “You’ll have your license suspended. Three years probation, DUI school. Fine, penalty, assessments. Standard package.”

  “I don’t wanna plead.”

  “Not many of us do.”

  “We can fight it.”

  I smiled. “Yes, we can fight it, but I have to tell you, you go to trial and lose, you’ll get slammed by the judge. You’ll do the max.”

  “Then don’t lose.”

  “Santa Claus, my jolly friend, you blew a one-eight.”

  “So?”

  “So that’s over twice the limit. Contesting a first deuce with a reading that high is a bad idea, unless you can find some obvious error. Like the machine was dropped in the toilet before the test. Or a rogue police officer poured a whole bottle of Cuervo down your throat, started your car, and sent you down the highway, and somebody captured it all on digital.”

  Richess was silent. I hoped his brain was soaking up what I said. I wanted him to be disabused of any fantasies concerning his situation. A little straight talk up front saves a lot of grumbling down the line.

  “Don’t mind my asking,” I said, “what were you doing in a G-string and Santa hat?”

  “What’s that matter?”

  “Just like to have all the facts, put it that way.”

  He grunted. It sounded like a dog holding in a belch. “I was just being crazy. I was at a party and got crazy.”

  “That’s one word for it.”

  Carl burped, hiccupped, and groaned.

  “What do you do when you’re not doing Santa?”

  “Concrete,” he said. “So can you do anything for me or not?”

  “I’ll check out everything I can. When we go in for the arraignment, you’ll dress in a suit and tie, and you’ll act sorry for what you’ve done, and we’ll see what the best deal we can make is.”

  Santa sighed. “No,” he said. “No deals.”

  “At least hear their offer.”

  “No. We fight. We prove the machine was wrong.”

  “We?”

  “Can you?”

  “Carl, a toaster could have told them you were drunk. Machine error might work on the threshold, but not on a one-eight.”